An organic EL device emits light of high intensity at a low voltage, provides various emission colors depending on the type of organic compound contained therein, and is easily manufactured as a plate-like surface emitting panel. As shown in FIG. 7, there is known such a surface emitting panel 10 including a substrate 11, an organic EL device 12 provided at the center of the substrate 11, and a number of electrode pads 13 provided around the organic EL device 12 on the substrate 11 (refer to Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2012-182129). Each of the number of electrode pads 13 is electrically connected to either the anode layer or the cathode layer (not shown) of the organic EL device 12 and mediates the power supply from an external power source to the anode layer or the cathode layer. In the surface emitting panel 10, the region corresponding to the organic EL device 12 acts as a light emitting region 10A, which emits light, while the region corresponding to the electrode pads 13 around the organic EL device 12 (dotted region) acts as a non-light emitting region 10B, which does not emit light.
As shown in FIG. 8, there is known a light emitting module 101 in which a surface emitting panel 10 as described above is used as a light source (refer to Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2011-108568). The light emitting module 101 comprises a housing 60 that holds the surface emitting panel 10 and a light transmissive member 70 located at the light emitting surface side of the surface emitting panel 10. The light transmissive member 70 and the substrate 11 of the surface emitting panel 10 are bonded to each other by a light transmissive resin 80. Light emitted from the surface emitting panel 10 is transmitted through the light transmissive resin 80 and the light transmissive member 70 and emitted to the outside.
However, in the light emitting module 101 described above, a region in front of the non-light emitting region 10B is a dark region where the illumination light intensity is low while a region in front of the light emitting region 10A is a bright region where the illumination light intensity is high. Thus, the light emission area where light is emitted is small. Further, for example, in the case where a number of light emitting modules 101 are arranged in a matrix, the illumination surface has a mix of bright and dark regions to be non-uniform and thus it is not attractive in appearance.